LEVEL OF LEGAL CAPACITY OF THE UKRAINIAN POPULATION: ACCESSIBILITY AND EFFECTIVENESS OF LEGAL SERVICES

09.03.11 | Denys Kobzin

Both everyday experience and research show that these days a large number of Ukrainian citizens encounter certain barriers in obtaining high quality, timely legal services in case of facing legal problems. This is related to paid and free of charge services. According to prior research, almost every third Ukrainian needs some legal assistance every year. At the same time, it is impossible to analyze problems, related to the provision of legal services to the citizens, without detailed description of the situation in the area of legal services provision. For this reason, Kharkov Institute of Social Research and International Renaissance Foundation performed a comprehensive analysis of accessibility of legal services and justice in Ukraine.

It should be noted that access to justice is a phenomenon that is difficult to measure. In general, this is due to the complexity of the operationalization of the concept, which inevitably entails difficulties in the preparation of valid instruments, construction of relevant procedures and selection of research methods. Nevertheless, the aim of the study was to assess the accessibility of justice in Ukraine. With this aim a number of tasks were completed during the research: analysis of the availability of legal information and legal advice, the role and effectiveness of government bodies in solving legal problems and barriers to justice. Furthermore, the structure of the research allowed us to the study the prevalence of various legal issues in the lives of Ukrainians and their significance, as well as respondents behavior when confronted with legal problems. In addition, a separate block of the study was devoted to the investigation of the attitude of Ukrainians to the existing legal system and courts. Download here.